--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> NYPL catalog tells me it's an 800-page edition of inscriptional

Tamil to

> 600 AD. It's not the sort of thing one can "read"; what is his

outline,

> and how does it differ from any previous treatments of the history

of

> Tamil writing?

"These are reflected in the development of the Tamil-Brahmi in three
stages (TB I, II and III): Stage I when the inherent a (short-medial
vowel) was absent in the consonants and the strokes (vowel notations)
were used for both the short and long medial a, and hence the need
for the reading of consonants with reference to context and position;
Stage II when the stroke for medial a marked only the long a; and
Stage III when the use of diacritics like the pulli was introduced
for basic consonants and for avoiding ligatures for consonant
clusters (as in Simhala-Brahmi). The pulli was used also for
distinguishing the short e and o from the long vowels, for the
shortened - i and -u (kurriyalikaram and kurriyalukaram) and for the
unique sound in Tamil called aytam, all of which are unknown to the
Indo-Aryan ( Prakrit and Sanskrit).

It is the recognition of the absence of the inherent vowel a (short)
in the early phases, e.g. ma, ka, na with strokes or medial vowel
notations, which are actually to be read as ma, ka, n (the inverted J
symbol for the nominal suffix `an' characteristic of Tamil), and the
addition of the pulli as a diacritic, that provided the key to the
whole re-decipherment. Herein lies the basic contribution of
Mahadevan to the study of the script and alphabet. That these
findings are corroborated by the phonetic rules of the Tolkappiyam is
significant."

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2013/stories/20030704000207100.htm

Suzanne

> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...